The popularity of the game of golf as a participation sport has proliferated over the past several years. Golf is played with three types of clubs which are generally referred to as woods, irons and putters. The term wood generally refers to a mallet-type headed club. With the increased use of metal alloys and other materials for use in the construction of the head, the term wood may now be somewhat misleading as they are often times now called metal woods.
For several years now there has been a growing dichotomy in golf clubs between what is generally referred to as a forged clubhead, constructed through a metal forging process, and cast clubheads, which are generally manufactured using an investment casting process, most commonly the "lost wax" investment casting process. There can be a substantial relative variation in the hardness of the relative types of clubheads, which consequently results in differences in how the club "feels" as the golf ball is struck.
In many cases, more advanced golfers have continued to use their forged clubs because of their softer and better feel, although the clubheads have generally not been as forgiving to the golfer in the resultant shots hit. Some manufacturers have turned to different types of metals and alloys to achieve a happy medium, and have used copper beryllium as the material casted.
Naturally, the softer the metal comprising the clubhead and clubface, the more susceptible it is to wear from hitting balls, tees, dirt, rocks and the like, which tends to lessen the performance on allowable grooves on the spin of the golf ball as it leaves the clubface, which is not desirable. However, even the harder metals used wear and our invention can improve those clubs as well.
It is further believed by many that using harder metals in clubheads results in causing the ball to travel further, as compared to a softer metal clubface, and assuming equal impacts. It is our belief that utilizing a harder surface material on the clubface will likewise then result in improved distance.
Our invention is intended to and does substantially reduce or eliminate the wear problem currently experienced by substantial play on existing metal clubs, particularly irons.
Our invention is also intended to allow a clubhead comprised of softer metals to be given a hardened striking surface, thus providing a club which has the hardness on the surface of the clubface where it is needed, yet which also has the softness or "feel" of a clubhead comprised of a softer metal.
Our invention is further intended, by providing the increased surface hardness, to result in greater distance to the golfer for the same impacts, as compared to golf clubs comprised of the same base metal, only without this hardened clubface surface.
Our invention substantially improves upon the previously used clubheads in the foregoing ways by providing a golf club in which the clubface surface has been hardened, whether by electro-spark deposition, or by other known processes. Our invention generally involves the process of imparting such a hardened surface on the clubface by the electro-static deposition of electrode materials onto and mixing with the existing clubhead metal, a micro-welding process whereby the material comprising the electrode is essentially welded to and into the surface of the clubface, resulting in a relatively smooth surface similar to a sand blasted surface.
Our invention further allows most golfers to achieve proper spin on the golf ball more consistently as a result of the foregoing, and allows value to be added to used clubs so that they can be used longer or be resold easier.